The Grief Chronicleshttps://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com
In the blink of an eye, he was gone and so was I. Mon, 02 Jul 2018 20:42:03 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s0.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngThe Grief Chronicleshttps://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com
depressedhttps://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/depressed/
https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/depressed/#commentsMon, 02 Jul 2018 14:34:27 +0000http://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/?p=674i’m feeling overly emotional today. so much going on. i keep crying.
]]>https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/depressed/feed/1jillybean1222Shaped by Our Pasthttps://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2018/06/27/shaped-by-our-past/
Wed, 27 Jun 2018 14:30:43 +0000http://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/?p=667Read More]]>I was thinking today about why I am a little cold-hearted about some things. See, a visiting family member has major issues. And my spouse invited him to stay with us indefinitely. I’m not happy about it on a lot of levels. I won’t even begin to discuss here how that is a very strong depiction of a failing marriage when your spouse doesn’t communicate with you, discuss with you, about something so big. That isn’t what this post is about.

This post is about me not wanting this person to live with us. And I was wondering to myself, “Why do I feel so strongly?”

The first part of my past that came to mind was no surprise. My uncle was an alcoholic who shot his defenseless girlfriend and killed her. And my uncle had never shown violent tendencies prior to this horrendous act. He got drunk and accused her of cheating on him. She wasn’t, by the way. It was just irrational drunk thinking.

The second part hit me today. See, I don’t like living in fear. I’ve had to a lot. Fear can be debilitating. When I was about 14 or so, my older brother, 21 or 22 at the time, began to exhibit very odd behavior. Different things, an obsession with raising bees, an obsession with religion, a few other odd obsessions. He was scary. I remember one time him calling my mom a bitch and I was scared. I can’t remember the whole situation, but i remember being frightened. One time, I did something he didn’t like, he picked me up and just threw me in my room. It didn’t really hurt, but it scared me. I ended up sneaking out the backdoor and walking 5 miles on our country roads into town IN MY BARE FEET. The scariest, though, was one day he and I were home alone playing a board game. I was reading a question to him. He said, let me read, that, he got up & walked over to my side of the table and leaned over to read card & tried to kiss me. I really don’t remember how I reacted. But I reacted. he jumped back, like he was scared, and said, “I’m sorry. The devil made me do it.” I locked myself in the bathroom.

Initially, I didn’t tell my parents. I wonder why? It makes no sense in hindsight.

Instead, every night, I went to bed scared that he may try to do more to me.

I’m not sure how much later it was, probably a month. One day, my dad who rarely raised his voice was so angry because my brother was acting so crazy. I finally screamed to stop it & told them.

My mom had me go spend a little time living with her best friend while they figured out what to do about my brother. he eventually checked himself into a mental hospital where he was diagnosed with schitzophrenia. he was hearing voices. he really did hear a voice telling him to kiss me, his younger sister.

Fear.

I hate feeling afraid in my own home.

I have also lived with fear for the last 5.5 years since my 13 year old son’s unexpected death. Fear…. he died without warning in his sleep from unknown heart condition. So I often lie in bed in fear. I fear for my other kids. I fear for myself when I feel “weird.”

So much of who I am has been cultivated by fear.

someone actually was talking about this very thing a couple weeks ago at a class of mine. he said, if someone is motivated by fear when they see a homeless person, they avoid them; if someone is motivated by compassion, they may offer him money or food; if someone is motivated by love, they will try to talk to him and help him.

I’m motivated by fear. My husband is motivated by love and compassion.

]]>https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2018/06/22/marriages-colleges-life-continues/feed/0jillybean1222You Can’t Force Mehttps://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2018/03/19/you-cant-force-me/
https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2018/03/19/you-cant-force-me/#respondMon, 19 Mar 2018 19:37:43 +0000http://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/?p=660Read More]]>There are times that my husband speaks to me as though I’m a child. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not often, but when it happens, grrrrr!

Today was one of those times. He got angry with me because I acted less than enthusiastic at his words that he and I need to pray together every night. See, you can’t force me to feel like praying. You can’t force me to have faith.

You know what you can do? You, the one with the strong faith, you can pray for me. You can pray that someday my faith returns.

You know what you shouldn’t do? Take an ugly tone with me. Use the words, “That’s a Bullshit attitude,” with that ugly tone.

As we both know dealing with our 16 year old son, we cannot force him to be who he is not. And as I sit here, an adult, you cannot force me to be who I’m not. Perhaps I should tell you that I just don’t know what I believe in anymore, but you’d just respond in that condescending tone of “Well, you have to believe.”

I know you wish you could change me on so many levels. Guess what…. I wish I could change you too.

Marriage is hard. It was hard before we lost Nolan. It is harder now.

]]>https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2018/03/19/you-cant-force-me/feed/010731088_10153266663977278_4260867549130839835_njillybean122228161735_10155995861777278_4633113418887153952_oHow to Parent when You’ve Lost a Child?https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/how-to-parent-when-youve-lost-a-child/
https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/how-to-parent-when-youve-lost-a-child/#commentsMon, 12 Feb 2018 13:49:38 +0000http://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/?p=658Read More]]>it changes everything…. your second child ends up being the oldest, even though he’s not the oldest. everything becomes out of whack. that first child is a pleaser… WAS a pleaser. typical first kid. wanted to do what was right. more connected to mom. second child? typical second child. more lazy. more rebellious. now he’s moved up the ranks to The Oldest with a Caveat. so he gets to be the new tester. now he gets the mistakes. or shall i say the learning curve. and we parents are human. and we parents who have lost a child we loved are probably even more human. is that possible? yeah, i think so.

so that heart on our sleeves is on our sleeves. the emotions run strong. the worries run deep. the fears. the attachment because we don’t want to lose another child.

and he grows up. tumultuous at age 13, but then the clouds clear a bit at 14. by 15 we are fully getting along again. it’s nice. 16 is going smoothly as well, but then starts new phase of parenting: riding in cars with teens, a mom who used to ride with drinking driving teens, so who knows what happens. and girlfriends. dating. again that driving thing that scares me so much. although sex stuff scares me still, #1 in my fear mill is the driving….

he’s always thought we are strict and overprotective. funny, we really aren’t. i think fall somewhere in the middle of hte road, leaning towards the LESS strict. sadly, he has friends though with the complete non-strict parents. and sadly enough, the girlfriend has no rules, no curfew, no boundaries. guess what, that makes us seem like bad guys.

oh wait… makes me seem bad. it’s been said straightforward that dad is fine. mom is the problem.

mom. mom the one who juggles the most. mom the one who probably hurts the most. mom definitely worries the most.

and mom fails often in so many ways.

i’m tired. my house is dirty and small. and i hate my house too. yes, you told me that. you point out one of my many faults. one of those things that emphasizes how much of a failure i truly am. and i sit here on the laptop in tears because i can’t find the energy to do anything about it.

There’s nothing I can say that I haven’t said before. Perhaps some think “Why say anything then?” Maybe I shouldn’t. Acknowledging the worst day of my life on social media. What exactly is the point?

I suppose there are multiple reasons for me and all of my public sharing.

First and foremost, I honor Nolan, I remember Nolan. I’ve had many people tell me over the past five years that although they never had the pleasure of meeting Nolan, they feel as though they knew him because of what i have shared. His memory remains alive which warms my broken heart.

Second, I share because it helps me. I have written words, words, and more words over the last five years. I post on Facebook. I write on multiple blogging sites. Therapeutic. I believe writing has been very therapeutic to me. Feeling the support, the reaction to my words, the kind words I receive in response, it’s all helped me. And those who grieve need help, need support. For each person, it is different. We find this support where we find it. It’s different for each person. Just as how we grieve is different for each person. Some are quiet, some are vocal. I happen to fall on the vocal side.

My third reason for sharing is incidental. I’ve been told by others that my sharing has been helpful to them, to others, for a variety of reasons. Believe me, I didn’t set out to be helpful. I’m a mother who lost her child. I feel quite alone and selfish in my grief. It’s mine. But…. along the way, I’ve met other grieving mothers, fathers. I’ve talked with others suffering from other problems. Some say that my words have helped them. Some say that they’ve learned to appreciate things more since watching my pain. Many other things have been shared, my mind is blank. I cannot remember them all. I suppose it can be a little soothing to me to know that I’ve helped others. If I could take that away though and have Nolan back, I would.

Five years. I miss you more today than I did yesterday Nolan.

]]>https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2017/12/31/5-years/feed/3jillybean1222screen-shot-2016-07-31-at-10-01-14-amWhat Would You Look Like?https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2017/12/04/what-would-you-look-like/
https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2017/12/04/what-would-you-look-like/#commentsMon, 04 Dec 2017 15:06:17 +0000http://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/?p=650Read More]]>You would be a man. Your 18th birthday is just 18 days away. A Man. What would you look like? I look at your sweet, innocent face in my pictures from just days before you died. So young. So happy. So sweet. So innocent. My boy. My wonderful, beautiful boy. What would you look like as my wonderful young man?

As I drove home this afternoon, I was listening to a Christmas song that made me think of Nolan. I said aloud, ‘I miss you Nolan.” And it hit me that this will be our fifth Thanksgiving, our fifth Christmas, our fifth holiday season without him. How can that be? 5 years seems so long. I look at my baby girl who is about to turn seven. And five years is nearly her lifetime. I look at my other children and all of them have grown so much.

What has happened to me in five years? A lot. I started practicing yoga, fell in love with it, and took the training to become an instructor. I now teach several times a week. I started a job with a catering company. When Nolan was still here, I was home 100% full time. Now I’m a working mom. I had surgery. I went to Florida a couple times. I drank a lot of wine. I cried, a lot…. I’ve driven miles and miles to take kids to activities and social things. I’ve shopped and cooked and clean and read and slept.

I’ve cried a lot.

Life just continues to move along. I move with it. Some days I feel truly happy. Some days I feel the weight of my grief. Some days I feel somewhere in the middle. I guess most days i feel somewhere in the middle. The grief is heavier some days than others. The happiness is brighter some days than others.

As we enter the holiday season, i often feel bipolar. i don’t mean that as to lessen the reality of someone who truly does suffer from any sort of mental illness. I mean it genuinely. I feel like I don’t know who I am sometimes as I juggle the grief with living day to day in the now. I will be laughing one minute and the next in tears. Or I will be crying and angry, then I’ll hear something on the radio that I love and I will sing along. It can be severely low or extremely high…. I’ll be singing or dancing with my kids (embarrassing the hell out of them) in the grocery store, then I’ll walk out and my face will fall and my body will slow down and i’ll lose that spring in my step. I go from energetic and positive to lethargic and negative.

I don’t really like to talk about my sadness to people in real life. I am an open book here, online. But mostly, in real life if my family or friends ask how I am doing, I’ll just keep it light. It’s just easier that way. Occasionally, I will break down into tears with a friend nearby. I let it all out, then I pull myself together, and off I go back to whatever I was doing before the tears set in. Weird things can trigger me. One day recently, a woman at my co-op was having some heart palpitations. When I saw how she looked, it really worried me. And then I heard they hadn’t called 9-1-1. I felt sicker and sicker by the minute. (she’s fine now btw). But I walked down the hallway, on my way to teach 6 and 7 year olds, and I just had to stop and cry for a bit. The whole thing just made me think of Nolan.

So the food is mostly prepared for tomorrow. I’m sitting here ready for bed. And I am thankful for many things. I definitely appreciate the gratitude that I am still able to feel. Gratitude is key to feeling positive about life, it’s key to feeling joy and happiness. And I do still have much that I am grateful for… But the fact is that it doesn’t change how much I miss my son. It doesn’t lessen my grief.

]]>https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2017/11/23/grief-and-gratitude/feed/3220658_1655033542088_7546857_ojillybean1222OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe Pictures of Youhttps://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2017/10/16/the-pictures-of-you/
https://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/2017/10/16/the-pictures-of-you/#commentsMon, 16 Oct 2017 20:15:18 +0000http://thegriefchronicles.wordpress.com/?p=629Read More]]>The pictures of you cause so much longing in me. I long for those days to return. I long for you to exist here and now in these days. I long to see how you would look at the age of 17, nearly 18, years old. I long to know if we would have fought as much when you were 13 as I did with Liam and as I currently do with Ciara.

I long to hear your voice as it was in 2012, but I also long to hear how it would sound as nearly an adult man. I long to know what you would want to do with your life. Would you still be considering the priesthood and the military? Would you have a girlfriend? I long to know what it would have been like to teach you how to drive. I long to know when you would have started bugging me for a cell phone. I long to know if you would have wanted to go to high school like Liam. I long to know who your best friends would be. I long to know if your hair would be short or long. I long to know if you would still be artistic. I long to know if you would still have such a deep love for nature.

I long to know if you would still be so silly or if growing up would have squelched that. I long to know when you would have achieved Eagle Scout, not IF, but WHEN because you were so close…. so close. I long to know what your first part-time job would have been. I long to know what you would want to be for Halloween each year that you have missed. I long to know what your favorite food would be today. I long to know what you would ask for your special birthday meal on your 18th birthday.

I long to watch your play soccer, run with a smile on your face, and climb a tree. I long to hear your laugh, see your smile, touch your face. I long for a kiss goodnight, a hug, and those words, “I love you Mom.” I long to look you in the eyes and say, “I love you Nolan.”